This health screening tool is meant to suggest questions for your next young male (ages 16-20) clinical visit.
Explore less personal topic areas before moving to discussions around sex, relationships and mental health.
Traditionally, prevention and intervention for mental health disorders among adolescent and young adults has been largely non-gender specific. To the extent that these types of measures have been gender specific, they have focused on conditions among AYA females. Recently, however, research into mental health disorders has identified a number of conditions that are more common, or expressed differently, among AYA males than among AYA females.
Certain behaviors that are indicators of mental health disorders among AYA males, as distinguished from AYA females, are elevated rates of suicide, conduct disorder, substance use and interpersonal violence.
One example of how a mental health condition is expressed differently by gender is depression. Whereas, among AYA females, depression is typically manifested by “internalization,” among AYA males it is manifested by “externalization;” that is, among AYA females depression is often expressed through, for example, self-doubt and withdrawal, whereas among AYA males depression is often expressed through, for example, risky behaviors and violence.
Additionally, norms of masculinity can lead to complicating factors such as stigma among AYA males surrounding help-seeking behaviors for mental health disorders.
Explore less personal topic areas before moving to discussions around sex, relationships and mental health.
Traditionally, prevention and intervention for mental health disorders among adolescent and young adults has been largely non-gender specific. To the extent that these types of measures have been gender specific, they have focused on conditions among AYA females. Recently, however, research into mental health disorders has identified a number of conditions that are more common, or expressed differently, among AYA males than among AYA females.
Certain behaviors that are indicators of mental health disorders among AYA males, as distinguished from AYA females, are elevated rates of suicide, conduct disorder, substance use and interpersonal violence.
One example of how a mental health condition is expressed differently by gender is depression. Whereas, among AYA females, depression is typically manifested by “internalization,” among AYA males it is manifested by “externalization;” that is, among AYA females depression is often expressed through, for example, self-doubt and withdrawal, whereas among AYA males depression is often expressed through, for example, risky behaviors and violence.
Additionally, norms of masculinity can lead to complicating factors such as stigma among AYA males surrounding help-seeking behaviors for mental health disorders.
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